It behooves us always to remember that in physics it has taken great minds to discover simple things. They are very great names indeed which we couple with the explanation of the path of a stone, the droop of a chain, the tints of a bubble, the shadows in a cup.
Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (May 2, 1860 – June 21, 1948), a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar
in On Growth and Form, 1917
The next [major] thrust [in biology], the one that may bring us closer to the Archimedian ideal of science, we may expect to come from information theory.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, it was already clear that, chemically speaking, you and I are not much different from cans of soup. And yet we can do many complex and even fun things we do not usually see cans of soup doing.
Food is a product of economic supply and demand, so try to figure out where the supplies are fresh, the suppliers are creative, and the demanders are informed.
Artin very wisely identifies these matrix groups as more fundamental–and they are. They come up much more in mathematics. Linear algebra is the central subject of mathematics. You cannot learn too much linear algebra. That’s the basic principle for all of you going on in mathematics.
Linear algebra is presented as sort of stupid stuff, [but] you cannot learn too much linear algebra.
Benedict Gross, Ph.D., George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University
in Abstract Algebra, Lecture 2 at 14:25 via Harvard Extension
Quite often in science we get a bit ahead of ourselves and begin theorizing wildly, which can very often be an excellent thought experiment in and of itself. But without some data to give proof to our theorems, we can be easily sidedtracked. Never have I read a statement so poetically phrased to admonish against it as I have recently:
So, we’d better bridle our speculations, lest we run the risk that someone like LeCarre’s Smiley asks us one day: ‘What dreams did you cherish that had so little of the world in them?’
Possibly one of the oddest closing sentences of a technical book–and a very good one at that–I’ve ever read:
This pressure can be calculated by minimizing the Helmholtz function of the system. Details can be found in Fermi’s textbook on thermodynamics (Fermi 1956). But why does osmosis explain the behavior of a salted cucumber? This question is left to the reader as a parting gift.
To establish a place of work where engineers can feel the joy of technical innovation, be aware of their mission to society, and work to their heart’s content.
Masara Ibuka (—), co-founder of Sony Corporation
on the first “Purposes of Incorporation” of Sony
